A random collage

We're rapidly approaching winter.  *Sigh*  I love living near the mountains but oh dear, I go into winter kicking & screaming.

Since we're so behind on blog posts, here's a random collage of pictures:

 "Hi Mom.  Just waiting from someone to drop something on the kitchen floor for me to eat."

Sometimes you have to snuggle with your yogurt cup.  Or wear it as a top hat.

Someone stole a stick from the wood pile...

 This is a very typical picture...

Busy bees soaking up the last of the nectar from our Russian Sage.

Our potted clover showing off its floral beauty.

And the post wouldn't be complete without a few of our favorite little guy...

We will be the coolest aunt & uncle.  So we start them young learning to order craft beer.

 "This guy must not be a Ramirez because he's really tall."

 "This is my Blue Steel look"

Ireland - Arrival in Dublin

Let's forget the fact it's now July & we took our trip to Ireland in March.  *Ahem*

We landed bright & early in Dublin at 5 a.m.  After getting our bearings with a map & picking up our (first) vehicle, I bit the bullet & started the drive.  Notice my look of panic/fear/"what the hell am I doing" look on my face.

 Glad we brought our GPS.

It began snowing as soon as we landed in Dublin...of course!  Weather cleared up (somewhat) but I was not excited to be driving in the icy slush snow.  According to the locals, it was the coldest March in 50 years.  Totally believable.

Drogheda was our first destination, en route to Donegal.

 Sheep!

 

 May we now show you our amazing first breakfast Ireland:

I kid you not.  According to the car rental agency employee, we'd have no trouble finding a place for breakfast in Drogheda.  After driving around for 45 minutes (following an icy 40 min drive from Dublin), we came to the very sad realization that Micky D's was our only option.  By the time they opened (8 a.m.), we were exhausted, cold, hungry, & very very jet lagged.  Although we were unable to enjoy a true Irish breakfast with a pint of Guinness for our first meal, McDonald's was warm, dry, staffed with extremely friendly employees & good, strong coffee...enough to make it worth our while.

 We loved all the beautiful farmhouses.

Our reason for stopping in Drogheda was to see Newgrange, a historic site highly recommended by a friend.  When we pulled into the parking lot, the car began making a terrible noise when making a left hand turn.  After a few calls back & forth to our car rental agency (I cannot say enough about the friendly & helpful employee I spoke with - she was awesome), they decided to send us a new car, free of charge.

This smile was a struggle.  May I remind you, we were delirious with exhaustion & not entirely excited with the start of the trip (first snow & then McDonald's?!), so the car issue almost made it too much.  Instead of taking the shuttle out to see the tomb (& risk missing the new car we were waiting on), Steve masterfully lined up the camera with a telescope in the visitor's center & snapped a pic.

It was time to move on & get to our B&B in Donegal.  Although it stayed cold & breezy during our trip in Ireland, the snow eventually stopped & we enjoyed an amazing vacation.

Home

I have to dance around the house every time this song comes on Pandora.

Fun

In case you need a good laugh...

88,000 and counting

With consistently high rankings for dependability, I'm proud to own a Toyota.  But after signing over our firstborn for the cost of windshield wipers, transmission fluid, filter, alternator & new tires, this zippy car better last me at least another 88,000 miles.  Next up: taking her to a body shop to review the paint chips on the hood that are slowing show signs of light rust.  Yikes.

(A very dirty shot of the girl before our epic honeymoon bike trip.  And I'm talking about the car, not myself.  I was still clean in this picture.  Amazingly.)

*Disclaimer: She is nine years old.  I should cut her a bit of slack.  With only a catalytic converter replacement prior to this makeover, she's doing pretty damn well.  Knock on wood

Circle of life

It never occurred to me a plethora of bird feeders would attract predators.  (Sometimes I'm in denial about the circle of life)  Minutes after submitting my posting below, I looked out the window to see a pigeon-sized bird eating something on a branch & acting quite differently than the pigeons that usually invade our trees.  With the binoculars & zoom lens, we realized a hawk had most likely turned one of our regular small bird visitors into an early dinner.  The occasional tiny feather dropping from the tree was another pretty good clue it was a bird meal & not a rodent meal.  (I'm really hoping it wasn't our resident Black-Capped Chickadee)  Looking through our bird book, we narrowed it down to Cooper's Hawk or Sharp-Skinned Hawk:

In a previous life...

I think I might have been an Ornithologist.  I have a deep-rooted love of birds.  Don't ask - I have no idea.  Then again, I have a deep-rooted love of all animals.  If you don't believe me, ask my parents about their unspoken distress when I told them I wanted to go into law school.  For animal rights.  (Don't worry, Mom & Dad, it was a phase)

With our new camera - the Olympus E-PL5 (a Christmas treat to ourselves, mostly keeping in mind our upcoming Ireland trip) - I've been having a lot of fun capturing activity at our multiple bird feeders (I did spring for a zoom lens when it was on sale).

A well-used & much appreciated Christmas gift from the in-laws (if you look closely, you'll notice the springs which pull the well-placed metal leaves over the openings to prevent heavier critters, such as squirrels, from scaring away the birds & eating all the food):

Our My friend, the squirrel (whom drives the dogs nuts):

Our resident Black Capped Chickadee - a very bold, opinionated, loud-mouthed little thing.  It's always yelling at me when I'm filling the feeders & doesn't mind eating while I'm standing three feet away.

Don't mind the blur on the right side of the picture - that may or may not be a reflection of my pink & red pajama pants on the window while I took the picture.

Kitchen happenins & other stuff

A recent procurement of 40 lbs of Jumani apples through Bountiful Baskets led to two long days of canning.  The majority of apples were made into applesauce but I wanted to have some other items to mix up our pantry lined with applesauce, peaches, & numerous jams.  I'm not much of a chutney fan but I liked the idea of a savory apple mixture to use with meals.  Unable to find specific recipes, most of my research was spent ensuring the ingredients were safe for water canning (& canning in general) - everything else was fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants & taste.  We split the rest of the batch into curry apples (chopped apples reduced down in Simply Apple juice & curry powder) & apple rum cinnamon sauce (chopped apples reduced down in Simply Apple juice, brown sugar, rum & cinnamon - idea from Ball peach rum sauce).

We opened a jar of the curry apples to have with pork chops - success!

 Apple rum cinnamon sauce - with ice cream, it's like a party in your mouth.

If you need a successful black bean burger recipe, check it out.  The secret ingredient to keep it all glued together?  Plaintains.  Who knew.  These are delicious dish.

 Homemade ranch dressing.  This stuff is the bomb dot com.  Never again will I be able to eat store-bought ranch dressing.  Ever.

Our local community college offers "community enrichment" classes - most are one-day & for a small fee, you can learn such items as baking, cooking, jewelry-making, soap-making, etc.  I took a ceramics class in high school & was hooked but never made much of an effort to pursue it after graduating.  Note: I didn't say I was good.  Just that I really enjoy making ceramics.  Fast forward post-college in Sheridan & I find out one of the local potters is offering a 10 week, Monday night ceramics class at the community college.  We don't have assignments but instead show up & for three hours, once per week, have complete access to the clay, wheels, glazes, & kilns (our pieces are fired with the college student pieces, which is a nice perk).  Since then, I have taken the class a handful of times the past few years & I decided to take it again this semester.  I'm finally noticing improvement.  Ceramics is an art form that most certainly takes a lot of practice - our instructor, who makes beautiful pottery, mentioned it took her ten years before she felt comfortable opening her own shop.  Of course, our house now has more damn bowls than I should admit, but I think I'm getting the hang of some other shapes.  :)

Snowshoeing in Story

We took the pups to a trail in Story (a small community about 15 min from Sheridan) to let them run around.

We didn't really need snowshoes...

This is an Awkward Family Photo moment.

Working on his future modeling career.

 "Brewer, come back!"

 "Brewer, come here, come here!"

 Let's try this again...